From Chris Harper-Mercer to Dylann Roof, bad parents share blame for their son’s mass shootings, so Hillary has a better case suing brat makers than gun makers.
“So sue me,” is the swaggering phrase grade-schoolers used to employ to show bullies they could care less about their petty taunts. Today, our 54-year-old President is calling gun owners “absolutists” with “crack pot conspiracy theories.”
Gun manufactures—I’m talking to you Remington, Smith & Wesson and Winchester—it’s time to stand your ground against lingual bullies. It’s time to say, “So sue me.”
Bad Parents: Common Denominator Among Mass Shooters
While Hillary Clinton was studying the dark arts of server secrecy, I was researching the history of gun free zones and mass violence in America for “Let Me Be Clear.” And I can tell you the common theme for major U.S. shootings is: a young and mentally unstable man, raised by negligent parents, who heads to a gun free zone to commit mass murder.
"The gun industry and gun sellers are the only business in America that is totally free of liability,”Clinton said with her fingers crossed behind her back last Monday. She wants to eliminate the so-called loophole of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which helps shield gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits. Her end goal is to help shooting victims blame and sue gun makers for mass violence.
In truth, gun manufactures do not need any man-made laws to justify their existence because reason tells us we have a natural right to self-defense. Hillary could abolish the PLCAA and the 2nd Amendment and we would still have a fundamental right to make and own guns.
Folks as socialist as Bernie Sanders voted for the PLCAA and even NPR pointed out Hillary is “wrong” in saying gun makers have “no liability,” since they are liable for defective products. If Hillary wants to play lawyer, she should sue the inattentive parents who raised America’s deadliest mass shooters.
Meet The Parents of Chris Harper-Mercer
A black mother; a white father. 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer was no “white supremacist” but a biracial young man whose parents, especially his father, treated him as an afterthought.
His mother, Laurel Harper, is a licensed practical nurse. While Laurel worked the night shift, her son was home “pacing until 3 or 4 in the morning,” according to a neighbor’s report to the New York Times. When Laurel—or TweetyBird, as she went by online—was home, she was often on her computer, trolling the Internet to post commentary and answer health-related questions from anonymous users of the online forum, “Yahoo Answers.”
Laurel seemed sincerely interested in helping others suffering with Asperger’s, which both she and Chris had. Unfortunately, her online therapy sessions came at a high price: her mentally unstable son was left alone in his room.
When Laurel did spend face-time with her son, it was often to take him to shooting ranges—despite the fact that he had been in and out of a subacute care center in Southern California for failing to take his medication. Though she told a coworker that her son was “a real big problem” with “psychological problems,” she bragged to her online friends that her son was her go-to source for “knowledge” on guns.
During the two years prior to Chris’ violent rampage, where he took guns from his mother’s home, headed to a gun free zone (Umpqua Community College), and murdered nine and injured nine more—his father was completely absent from his life.
I haven’t seen my son since “before he left [California] for Oregon,” Ian Mercer told CNN last week. But did Ian accept any responsibility for neglecting his son after divorcing Christopher’s mother? Nope. He blamed the guns. “How on earth could [Chris] compile 13 guns?” Mercer asked. Um, let’s see… Maybe with the inadvertent help of his roommate, who happens to be your ex-wife, who you had to know had a fascination with firearms?
More Bad Boys With Bad Parents
Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza (killed 27, injured two), Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger (killed six, injured 14) and Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof (killed 9, injured one) all had nitwit parents who supplied them with key tools (such as a gun or a car) that they used to commit violence. Their parents also allowed them to live reclusive and independent lifestyles despite clear signs of mental illness.
Elliot Rodger’s parents may be the most famous, as his father, Peter Rodger is a director who worked on The Hunger Games movie. “We didn’t see this coming at all,” Rodger claimed, despite news reports that his son complained to him about misery and extreme sexual insecurity. For being a director, Peter also ironically managed to ignore his own son’s disturbing—and public—movie making on YouTube.
Peter and his wife loved to spend money—but apparently not time—on their son. They reportedly knew he had mental issues and yet allowed him to live alone (with guns), even giving him the BMW that he used to commit mass violence.
On May 23, 2014, Elliot hopped into his BMW and headed toward a gun free zone—the University of California, Santa Barbara—where he committed mass violence and finally took his own life. California had the strictest gun regulations of all 50 states and a central database that ostensibly allows police to track criminals via quick and easy access to all gun purchases. Ultimately, more attentive parents, not stricter gun laws would have stopped Elliot Rodger.
Shortly before his shooting spree, the police paid him a visit at his mother’s request. But it was too late in the game—she should have been attentive much sooner.
When the police showed up, Elliot threw on the charm—pretending to be a polite and shy young man. The police fell for his act and never checked California’s database before or after their meeting. If they had, they would have learned that he had three firearms hidden in his room as well as a journal detailing his dreams to use guns to commit heinous mass violence.
Fathers like Ian Mercer and Peter Rodger aren’t off the hook for making children—and then failing to provide them with the love and medical care they need to properly develop.
In contrast, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Remington and other gun makers create the very tools police used to wound Chris Harper-Mercer in a shootout, deterring him from killing more innocent Americans. Likewise, 18-year-old Steven Jones ceased firing as soon as a police officer arrived at Northern Arizona University. Share this with your friends who make or own guns and encourage them to stand their ground and respond to Hillary’s bullying with a confident: “So sue me.”
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